2023's best books: Victorian sex, apocalypse and Prince Harry
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our literary editors give us the lowdown on what they’ve been reading this last year - from steamy sex to the end of the world - and what should be on your Christmas gift list.
This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: thetimes.co.uk/storiesofourtimes.
Guests:
- Robbie Millen, Literary Editor, The Times and The Sunday Times.
- Johanna Thomas-Corr, Chief Literary Critic, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Host: Luke Jones
For the full list of Times & Sunday Times best books of the year, read more: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/best-books-2023-gmbb8spb3
You can buy every book on the list at timesbookshop.co.uk
Prophet Song - Paul Lynch
The Wren, The Wren - Anne Enright
Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan
The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
Old God’s Time - Sebastian Barry
Soldier Sailor - Claire Kilroy
The Future - Naomi Alderman
Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton
Fire Weather - John Vaillant
Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart
But What Can I Do? - Alastair Campbell
How Westminster Works… And Why It Doesn’t - Ian Dunt
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
The New Life - Tom Crewe
Spare - Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
The Woman In Me - Britney Spears
My Name Is Barbra - Barbra Streisand
Paris: The Memoir - Paris Hilton
Erotic Vagrancy - Roger Lewis
The Earth Transformed - Peter Frankopan
Pathogenesis - Jonathan Kennedy
Eve - Cat Bohannon
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
Long Island - Colm Tóibín
Knife - Salman Rushdie
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rolling Stone Raves, Maestro is an absolute marvel and one of the finest films of the year. |
| 0:05.2 | He can be the first great American conductor. |
| 0:09.2 | The Times Hales, you will be flawed. |
| 0:12.0 | Five stars. There's a price for being in my brother's orbit, you know that. |
| 0:17.0 | Bradley Cooper is sublime and Carrie Mulligan is masterful. |
| 0:21.0 | You don't even know how much you need me to me. I might. |
| 0:25.0 | Maestro. Watch now in select cinemas and on Netflix the 20th of December. |
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| 1:11.0 | a cold, the nights are short, and you'll soon have a home full of family you'd like to avoid so we have hardback escapism for you |
| 1:16.9 | The best books of 2023 |
| 1:20.5 | We've got two of the best bookish minds who are also on the times payroll to flick |
| 1:25.2 | through the literary year that was. It's so taboo-breaking and funny. So it's a kind of |
| 1:31.5 | completely bonkers book. Here is essentially a very sexy scene. |
| 1:37.0 | That sounds pretentious nonsense, doesn't it? |
| 1:40.0 | The end of the world, steamy sex scenes, the dominance of Irish authors and the scandal of |
| 1:45.6 | royal ones. |
... |
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